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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033817]
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14 何为科学？
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到底何为科学？要回答这个问题并不难。不过，如果这个问题由不同的人来回答，答案恐怕就会五花八门。
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同我非常要好的一位女士曾对我说，假如允许她再婚的话，她不会选择搞科学的男人，因为科学男精确到吓人。我也经常听到一些类似的说法，显然主流观点认为，精确是科学的一种属性。反过来，仅有精确并不代表科学。当我们听到有人形容棒球或桥牌相当“科学”时，我想其意是说游戏玩法比较精确，用行话说，就是“严谨无误”。
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也有人认为，科学是撒旦为了破坏宗教而设计之物。这种观点早年较常见，以至于当时我们学校搞科研的教授们都被视为撒旦的帮凶，现今这种看法已不多见了。就此回想起来，世界变化之大，令我着实感叹。总体而言，科学界和宗教界算是达成了共识。尽管此种共识并非最终定论，但至少提供了一些权宜之计，使双方鲜有冲突发生。现在宗教考虑到了科学的诉求，而科学也认可宗教伟大的基本真理。二者理应互为强化，毫无疑问，双方最终将会实现互帮互助。
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对于什么是科学这个话题，可能最常见的观点就是：能带给我们很多实用发明的就是科学。比如，蒸汽机、电报、电话、电车、染料、药物、炸药等等，这些都是科学的成果。当然，如果没有这些成果，那“科学”的名头也就徒然虚无。后文中我会就该话题展开讨论，在这里我只是简单一提，一带而过。现在，我只需强调，实用发明不是科学工作的必然产物，即科学工作的价值并不取决于那些实用发明。这些观点对科学界的内行来说耳熟能详，但会让非科学界的外行人愕然惊讶。在此，我希望向你们阐明清楚这一观点的正确性。
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不精确，科学就没有价值可言。但是，科学不仅仅是实现精确这么简单。科学不是破坏宗教之物，其目的也不是搞实用发明。那科学到底是什么呢？
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有部字典对科学的定义是：一切知识，包括各种原理、事物成因及确定的真理或事实；……根据所发现的一般真理或运行的普通法则进行系统整理及归纳总结，进而实现知识的积累和建立，……尤其是涉及物质世界及其现象、本质、构成，有关于自然的力量，有关于活体组织的特征及功能等等。
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有位作家写道：“科学与艺术的区别在于科学是一套解释原则和演绎系统，用于说明某些物质的本质，而艺术则是一套具有实践技能的规律，其目的为了完成某些工作。科学教给我们‘是什么’；艺术教给我们‘怎么做’。比如真理，在艺术中，它是我们实现某个目标的手段；而在科学里，它是我们追求的唯一目标。因此，艺术实践不能算作科学。”另外一位作家写道：“可以说，科学和艺术都是进行真理探寻，而前者注重的是知识，后者关心的则是作品。所以，和艺术相比，科学更关乎高层面的真理，不会参与到生产应用当中去。”
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就目的而言，科学是要积累知识、系统化知识，以及发现真理。天文学家不断尝试研学天体知识，了解其运动、构成和变化。通过天文学家若干世纪的努力工作，方有今日的天文科学。与天相对，地理学家关注的是大地，尽其所能地了解地质成分和结构，并试图搞清楚在无历史记载时期地质构造如何变化才形成今日之模样。地理学家将大量的知识精心系统化，并形成无数有趣且有意义的推演，所有这些铸就了地理科学。如果有一天，经过地理学家的努力，所有关于地质结构和发展过程的知识都被掌握了，那么，地理学家这一行也就不复存在了。不过，那一天永远不会来到。
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我还可以继续指出科学界各领域学者所做工作的总体特点，不过那样太乏味了。我们只需要深刻认识到一个事实：无论科学中的哪个领域，科学工作者总会尝试获取该领域中的所有知识。我以天文学的例子开始，现在举个化学的例子来收尾。天文学研究的是宇宙中最遥远的距离和最大的天体，与之相对，化学研究的是宇宙中最短的距离和最小的粒子。天文学是研究无穷大的科学，而化学是研究无穷小的科学。化学家想要了解物质的成分，因此，他们不断探索，直至物质构成的最小粒子。然而，摆在眼前的事实使化学家相信，借助最精密的仪器能够计量的最小粒子和借助性能最强大的显微镜能够观察到的最小粒子，相比他们所认为的理应是构成物质的最小粒子，依然庞大无比。正是基于这一点，我才认为化学是研究无穷小的科学。
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这样我就试图表明了什么是科学，什么不是科学。
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（罗选民 译）
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033818]
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15 THE DURABLE SATISFACTIONS OF LIFE
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By Charles W. Eliot
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THE DURABLE SATISFACTIONS OF LIFE, from The Durable Satisfactions of Life , by Charles William Eliot, 1910.
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Charles William Eliot （1834-1926）, American educationalist; teacher of mathematics and chemistry at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1853-1896;president of Harvard University, 1869-1909; the man who introduced the elective system of studies into American colleges.The Durable Satisfactions of Life was the last book published by President Eliot.
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For educated men what are the sources of the solid and durable satisfactions of life? I hope you are all aiming at the solid, durable satisfactions of life, not primarily the gratifications of this moment or of to-morrow, but the satisfactions that are going to last and grow. So far as I have seen, there is one indispensable foundation for the satisfactions of life—health. A young man ought to be a clean, wholesome, vigorous animal. That is the foundation for everything else, and I hope you will all be that, if you are nothing more. We have to build everything in this world of domestic joy and professional success, everything of a useful, honorable career, on bodily wholesomeness and vitality. This being a clean, wholesome, vigorous animal involves a good deal. It involves not condescending to the ordinary barbaric vices. One must avoid drunkenness, gluttony, licentiousness, and getting into dirt of any kind, in order to be a clean, wholesome, vigorous animal. Still, none of you would be content with this achievement as the total outcome of your lives. It is a happy thing to have in youth what are called animal spirits—a very descriptive phrase; but animal spirits do not last even in animals; they belong to the kitten or puppy stages. It is a wholesome thing to enjoy for a time, or for a time each day all through life, sports and active bodily exercise. These are legitimate enjoyments, but, if made the main object of life, they tire. They cease to be a source of durable satisfaction. Play must be incidental in a satisfactory life.
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What is the next thing, then, that we want in order to make sure of durable satisfactions in life? We need a strong mental grip, a wholesome capacity for hard work. It is intellectual power and aims that we need. In all the professions—learned, scientific, or industrial—large mental enjoyments should come to educated men. The great distinction between the privileged class to which you belong, the class that has opportunity for prolonged education, and the much larger class that has not that opportunity is that the educated class lives mainly by the exercise of intellectual powers and gets therefore much greater enjoyment out of life than the much larger class that earns a livelihood chiefly by the exercise of bodily powers. You ought to obtain here, therefore, the trained capacity for mental labor, rapid, intense, and sustained. That is the great thing to get in college, long before the professional school is entered. Get it now. Get it in the years of college life. It is the main achievement of college life to win this mental force, this capacity for keen observation, just inference, and sustained thought, for everything that we mean by the reasoning power of man. That capacity will be the main source of intellectual joys and of happiness and content throughout a long and busy life.
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But there is something more, something beyond this acquired power of intellectual labor. As Shakespeare puts it, “the purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation.” How is that treasure won? It comes by living with honor, on honor. Most of you have begun already to live honorably and honored, for the life of honor begins early. Some things the honorable man cannot do, never does. He never wrongs or degrades a woman. He never oppresses or cheats a person weaker or poorer than himself. He is honest, sincere, candid, and generous. It is not enough to be honest. An honorable man must be generous and I do not mean generous with money only. I mean generous in his judgments of men and women, and of the nature and prospects of mankind. Such generosity is a beautiful attribute of the man of honor.
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How does honor come to a man? What is the evidence of the honorable life? What is the tribunal which declares at last,“This was an honorable man”? You look now for the favorable judgment of your elders, —of parents and teachers and older students; but these elders will not be your final judges, and you had better get ready now in college to appear before the ultimate tribunal, the tribunal of your contemporaries and the younger generations. It is the judgment of your contemporaries that is most important to you; and you will find that the judgment of your contemporaries is made up alarmingly early, —it may be made up this year in a way that sometimes lasts for life and beyond. It is made up in part by persons to whom you have never spoken, by persons who in your view do not know you, and who get only a general impression of you; but always it is your contemporaries whose judgment is formidable and unavoidable. Live now in the fear of that tribunal, —not an abject fear, because independence is an indispensable quality in the honorable man. There is an admirable phrase in the Declaration of Independence, a document which it was the good fashion of my time for boys to commit to memory. I doubt if that fashion still obtains. Some of our public action looks as if it did not. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” That phrase—“a decent respect”—is a very happy one. Cherish “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” but never let that interfere with your personal declaration of independence. Begin now to prepare for the judgment of the ultimate tribunal.
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Look forward to the important crises of your life. They are nearer than you are apt to imagine. It is a very safe protective rule to live to-day as if you are going to marry a pure woman within a month. That rule you will find a safeguard for worthy living. It is a good rule to endeavor hour by hour and week after week to learn to work hard. It is not well to take four minutes to do what you can accomplish in three. It is not well to take four years to do what you can perfectly accomplish in three. It is well to work intensely. You will hear a good deal of advice about letting your soul grow and breathing in without effort the atmosphere of a learned society or place of learning. Well, you cannot help breathing and you cannot help growing; these processes will take care of themselves. The question for you from day to day is how to learn to work to advantage, and college is the place and now is the time to win mental power. And, lastly, live to-day and every day like a man of honor.
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Notes
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durable, enduring; lasting; that which does not wear out or decay soon.